Dragon Slayer
by Pygolampida Ankathi Alepou Dai
Summary: The codex said that dragons live for hundreds of years. There's also the slight possibility they're smarter than they look.
1. A Thousand Years

I have lived here for a thousand years. This mountain was my home, this land was my own. Only the foolhardy and stupid approached it. I flew these skies, master of the rocks I touched. For hundreds of year have I raised my clutches in these caves, guarding and protecting my children. I have watched proudly as they grew, and looked on in sadness as they fell to man's metal.

I have lived for a thousand years, in peace. I take what I must to survive, and for my children to survive. Is that so different from you? I know many things, have seen eras rise and fall. You are a blink of light, easily burned. Only magic and metal protect you, but that is enough and I respect you for making up for your weakness.

So why do you come to me with your gleaming, sharp weapons? I try to scare your men away from my nest, but still you continue. You cut down my young and destroy my eggs. I attack in fury, scattering your men and burning their soft flesh. I later fall into despair, wrapped around my shattered children.

Do you wish to have the gleaming disks I have collected? They are yours. But no, you take those and are still here. Do you wish to have the other metal spikes I took from other warriors in the past? Take them! You do, and you still do not leave my mountain. Your men hunt for me, but are too stupid to check the places they have already been. I wait for you to leave, so I may begin again.

You come to survey the destruction of my clutch, and I was foolishly away when you did so. You had come to collect the last of my eggs; the only ones untouched. I tried, so desperately, to protect them from you.

Only magic and metal protect you, but it is enough.

I lay now, watching as your men come and take away the last of my children. You stand before me, triumphant from our battle. My blood coats your blade, and you lick it from the metal like a disgusting dog, still caught in the Reaver's craze.

My end is slow and my last image is of you, idly commenting on what to do with my corpse as you look over my unhatched children with disinterest.

The Darkness carried me away from my home, from my children, and from you.


	2. The Monster

I hadst heard about thee, dragon slayer. I hadst heard and thought it lies. No such creature could fell a dragon. We, the mighty, great power, would never allow our entire nest to be slaughtered. I sat upon my coin, laughing at what I believed to be a foolish, stupid drake. I had tossed my head, daring aloud any who would come for my hoard. It was my folly to not keep a more watchful eye.

I would wish to believe in my final moments that I at least made our battle a difficult fight for thou, and take a twisted satisfaction in knowing I had no clutch at that time for thee to take and corrupt and torture. I can hardly image what thou would do to my children had I had any with my at the time. Would thou'st put them in a bow of metal branches, stuck within a stone tower, never to fly? Would thou'st harvest their blood and pluck at their soft scales, leering down on their frightened faces as thou play with thou's food?

Would thee do to them as those magic-users had done to me, all those years ago?

Then thou art the monster, not I. I am blessed in knowing none of my kin shall suffer such a fate, and also I weep, even as thee blade cuts out my eyes, for the young thou haft stolen already from their ravages mother's corpse. Take my scales, slayer; take my blood and teeth, and know this day which of us should be killed for the safety of others.

For it is not I.


	3. Drake

Invader, how dare you?! How dare you come into my Ladies lands and disturb her so! How dare you crush Her eggs beneath your foot, the ones She had labored over for days to lay and the ones I yet still labor over to keep safe and warm. It is my duty to stop you, as it is the duty of all the drakes of the Lady.

How dare you come here as if it is your right! You are lost within cliffs, and yet you refuse to be herded out or scared in the direction of escape. I can smell the blood on your sword, Invader! Drake blood and dragon-ling blood coats your steel. How dare you! How dare you!

I fight with the others to drive you out, and you fight only to kill Her. You fight with a hazed mind, falling into the blood-craze your kind is so ought to do. Others fight by your side, and yet they are no less savage than you are.

Invader, no. You are too close you Her. I can not reach you, not with my leg crippled as it is by your sword. No, step away! Away, can you not understand me?! That is closer, not farther- are you raising your sword? How dare you raise your steel against- my Lady?

She has gone still. Surely, She is just pretending, so that when Her enemies' back is turned, She shall pounce! You blade- it could not have slain my Lady!

... My Lady?

I have failed Her. Kill me then, Invader, for what am I with no leg- and no Lady? I'm not worthy of the breath I have been blessed with. Look, one of you battle-mates will finish me off. I shall at least be reunited with my Lady, and I shall ask for Her forgi-


End file.
